Freezer not freezing

Our spare fridge/freezer is in the garage. It's been extremely cold. The freezer light is on but the food is partially thawed. Does the cold weather effect the freezer's performance and if so what can I do?

It sound like you may be having defrost issues,Check to see if you have a build up of ice on the inside rear wall of the freezer.If so,You will need to have the defrost timer,defrost element,and the defrost thermostat checked.

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I'm in Mass and also buried in several feet of snow, so I have an idea how cold it is in your garage. As a matter of fact, you don't run a compressor in cold outdoor weather, which is basically what you're doing. AC units that were meant to run outdoors have a compressor heater, your fridge doesn't have one.

Many residential refrigerator / freezers are designed to work at temperature considerably above above freezing. Most modern refrigerator / freezer have a single electric thermostat - located in the fresh food compartment. This lone thermostat will control the compressor to keep the fridge (fresh food) section at the desired temperature (usually between 34 - 38 degrees F). The freezer will get colder regardless of how cold it is already whenever the fridge thermostat turns the compressor on.

Now that you see how the thermostat works, let's look at what happens when the fridge is placed in an unheated space - like a garage. In winter time, the temperature can drop considerably below 38 degrees. If the outdoor temperature remains cold enough, for long enough - it will affect the thermostat in the fridge. The temperature inside the fridge could drop below 38 degrees, preventing the thermostat from telling the compressor to turn on. Meanwhile, the temperature in the freezer compartment slowly rises from the normal -10 to 0 F degrees. It will continue to rise until it is the same temperature as the fresh food compartment or until the thermostat in the fresh food compartment tells the compressor to turn on again. This means the freezer contents will thaw.

If the temperature in the garage is even in the 40 to 50 degree range, the loss of cold in the fridge may not happen often enough to keep the compressor coming on often enough to keep some freezer items frozen solid - such as ice cream. Remember, water freezes at 32 degrees F, other products may require lower temperatures to remain frozen, and could thaw at 28 or other temperature.

Many times a freezer and/or refrigerator do not work right because of a dirty condenser coil...there are also many other things that can go wrong.

If you are hearing a clicking or buzzing then check out the last two tips.

If your refrigerator is running but warm, then...

Check out these tips that I wrote about that... it is a great place to start trouble shooting your unit...and something that you can do rather then calling a repair person to do a simple thing for you...

probably,there is a garage kit available that willallow it to work at colder temps,listed in owners manule under accessories the thermostat senses refrig compartment temps.soif garage temp is below 40 or so the thermostat just doen't turn the unit on enough or not at all

Hi,
When it gets very cold the gas (freon) in the refrigeration system shrinks....because the properties that make cold also work against you in this case...when the gas shrinks in volume it then does not work properly anymore...the hot gas does not turn back into a liquid but stays as a gas and because of that it does not cool when going through the expansion device...ie. cap tube or expansion valve. If you were to keep it in the cold all the time you could add a bit of charge to make it work, but then if you move it to warm or the weather warms... now you are over charged... just one of those "no win" deals...
They don't make these things to run in extreme environmental changes..they like it a consistent temp. all the time...

I'll assume you don't have much food/items in the freezer section. Because you have the fridge set on the max cooling setting and the freezer set higher than the mid setting, it could be that you have frozen the cold air passage from the freezer to the fridge.

If you can, 1) remove all contents that would spoil; 2) turn off the fridge 3) open both doors and allow the fridge to manually thaw out completely (this will speed up the opening of the cold air exchange passage between the freezer and fridge, which is likely blocked and frozen solid. Have plenty of towels handy to soak up the water from the defrosting process,

After a FULL day of being left off and doors open to thaw out, check for any further thawing and dripping water inside, if present wait another 8 hours (you really want to get it thawed out the first time!) When that's done, reset BOTH temperature controls to the factory mid-point setting (5?) as marked on your control knobs.

The key to having a refridgerator run properly is to allow for it to run at the factory settings for at least 24 hours BEFORE you adjust the controls higher and/or lower for each section. Adjust it up or down in ONLY 1 setting increments so as to not cause ice build-up and freezing of the internal air exchange passages.

Also, as you've relegated this fridge as a garage "beer & backup" unit, make sure to keep the freezer as full as possible to make it run as efficiently as possible. You can freeze jugs of water and pack it with cheap thrift store bread to help it run correctly. An empty freezer has to work harder to keep just air at freezing temps. As such, it will pass much colder air into the fridge, and cause these types of freeze ups. By the way, turning up the temp controls only makes it worse and just results in a total "freeze up" inside the cabinet panels that you can't easily see or get at to rectify, hence the reason to shut it off and let it fully defrost.

When you're done, you should have your fridge back in action working like it should, but remember, don't rush temperature adjustments, even thou we all want those frosty beverages, it'll take a couple of days to achieve the desired "chill" you're likely used to getting when it was your primary fridge.

If it is below freezing in your garage the freezer will not work.No freezer except one Frigidaire freezer will work in the extreme cold.This one has a button to switch it to a refrigerator in the winter and a freezer in the summer.

hi there the problem you have is that the temp in the garage is to low, the fridge part of your fridge freezer has priority and will only activate the compressor when req'd ie. in cold weather the fridge may not need to switch on the compressor for days at a time this is when the freezer will defrost.
All you can try doing is having some very low heating in your garage in the cold weather